Status: 28.12.2022 08:35 a.m
Corona, energy prices, crisis policy: these issues mobilized thousands of demonstrators in the fall. According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the issue of migration is currently gaining in importance as a factor in mobilizing protests – especially from the right-wing spectrum.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution expects the topic of immigration to mobilize protests in the right-wing spectrum to become more important again at the beginning of the new year. The protests against high energy prices and the federal government’s crisis policy have died down in the last few weeks of the year.
The President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, told the dpa news agency that he did not see the bad scenarios of a “hot autumn” or “angry winter”, as many had outlined them, coming. In fact, “the current protests are more of a gentle breeze” – one that is mainly blowing in Saxony and Thuringia, adds Haldenwang. According to Haldenwang, the number of participants is also declining in these two federal states.
Left and AfD called for “hot autumn”.
Things looked different in September and the first half of October: sometimes several thousand participants gathered for demonstrations, some of which also protested against sanctions against Russia and against arms deliveries to Ukraine.
Both the left and the AfD had called for a “hot autumn” in response to high energy and food prices. This found the greatest resonance in East Germany. According to the police, around 10,000 people took part in a rally advertised by the AfD in Berlin in October.
The bourgeois milieu is withdrawing
According to Haldenwang, it should also be noted that the bourgeois milieu, which was still strongly represented in the Corona protests, is withdrawing more and more.
Haldenwang explains: “There is currently a mixture of right-wing extremists, such as representatives of the New Right, conspiracy theorists, ‘Reich citizens’ and ‘self-administrators’, delegitimizers, but also parts of the state association of the AfD in Thuringia, which is classified as proven extremist or right-wing extremist parties like the Free Saxons.” The problem: Haldenwang explains that there is hardly any demarcation between the individual groups.
Topics for mobilization “according to taste”
In 2021, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution defined a new phenomenon area “delegitimization of the state relevant to the protection of the constitution”. What binds all these groups together is “the goal of overcoming this political system,” said Haldenwang.
The topics used for mobilization are obviously “exchanged according to taste” – depending on what is working at the moment. The topic of migration is currently gaining in importance, said the President of the Federal Office.
Increase in asylum applications in Germany
In the first eleven months of this year, around 190,000 people applied for asylum in Germany for the first time, an increase of around 43 percent compared to the same period last year. Since around one million war refugees from Ukraine have been taken in since February 24 as a result of the Russian war of aggression, there are bottlenecks in accommodation in some municipalities.
The topic of migration has also come more into focus as a result of several reform projects by the federal government – for example on the so-called right of residence.
Climate protests are not observed
According to the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the climate protests have not given rise to any observations by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Regarding the Fridays for Future protest actions, Haldenwang said:
Their protests are peaceful and grounded in legality.
Referring to the actions of the “Last Generation”, he added: “The ‘Last Generation’ is a numerically small group that is now resorting to more drastic methods of protest.” The group is now also committing serious crimes, such as blockades at airports. These would have to be pursued and punished by the police, public prosecutors and courts.
Climate protection “legitimate concern”
However, climate protection is a legitimate concern, emphasized Haldenwang. He said: “Not only do we, but also the state offices for the protection of the constitution, currently see no sufficiently weighty actual indications of anti-constitutional efforts in the ‘last generation’.”
The protection of the constitution only comes into play when extremists radicalize or influence the protests. As far as the “last generation” is concerned, he sees a certain danger “in the fact that there are left-wing extremist groups trying to undermine this movement”.